IS LE and VS 2010 questions

[girit]

Hello,

I am very new to IS. I have been creating msi deployment packages by using MS Visual Studio (VS) for a while. Due to it's limitations and quirks, I want to try IS. I am reading the documentation, but I have some fundamental questions that the answers might help me to advance quickly.

1. Is it possible to load VS 2010 msi deployment project file in IS LE to create an IS project to avoid all the necessary steps to create a deployment project in IS?
2. I have some files to be placed and registered in the "\Windows\System32" directory. Which folder in IS folder structure I can place them?
3. In VS 2010, it is possible to set whether a specific file is to be registered by setting a property. How is this possible in IS LE? Does IS do this automatically if the file needs to be registered?

Thank you,

Cem

[chiranjeevi]

Hello,

Please find the answers below:

1. Is it possible to load VS 2010 msi deployment project file in IS LE to create an IS project to avoid all the necessary steps to create a deployment project in IS?

Ans: No, it is not possible, you have to add ISLE project to your solution to create a installation of your project.

2. I have some files to be placed and registered in the "\Windows\System32" directory. Which folder in IS folder structure I can place them?

Ans:To place the files in system folder:
>In the View list under Specify Application Data, click Files
>Right Click on Destination Computer
>Click on Show Predifined Folder
>Click on SystemFolder from the menu
>Add required files to SystemFolder

3. In VS 2010, it is possible to set whether a specific file is to be registered by setting a property. How is this possible in IS LE? Does IS do this automatically if the file needs to be registered?

Ans:To register a COM server/Specific file with InstallShield LE:
>In the View list under Specify Application Data, click Files.
>Right-click the file you want to register and then click Properties. The Properties dialog box opens.
>Click the COM & .NET Settings tab.
>In the Registration Type list, select the type of registration that you want to perform on the file.
>Click OK.


~Thanks
Chiranjeevi

[girit]

Hello Chiranjeevi,

I ma sorry I was late to respond. Thank you for your very helpful answers. I used them to full extend.

I have another question. I created an installation. It put bunch of folders along with msi and setup.exe file. But, the program msi file is very small. I believe, the IS installation, uses the files in the folders (just like the folders to be created in the client's installation) to do teh installation. I create installation systems in VS 2010. The only two files created are setup.exe and Program.msi files. They are big enough to include all the files. So how can I create an installation that will have only these two files?

Thnak you for your help.

chiranjeevi wrote:
Hello,

Please find the answers below:

1. Is it possible to load VS 2010 msi deployment project file in IS LE to create an IS project to avoid all the necessary steps to create a deployment project in IS?

Ans: No, it is not possible, you have to add ISLE project to your solution to create a installation of your project.

2. I have some files to be placed and registered in the "\Windows\System32" directory. Which folder in IS folder structure I can place them?

Ans:To place the files in system folder:
>In the View list under Specify Application Data, click Files
>Right Click on Destination Computer
>Click on Show Predifined Folder
>Click on SystemFolder from the menu
>Add required files to SystemFolder

3. In VS 2010, it is possible to set whether a specific file is to be registered by setting a property. How is this possible in IS LE? Does IS do this automatically if the file needs to be registered?

Ans:To register a COM server/Specific file with InstallShield LE:
>In the View list under Specify Application Data, click Files.
>Right-click the file you want to register and then click Properties. The Properties dialog box opens.
>Click the COM & .NET Settings tab.
>In the Registration Type list, select the type of registration that you want to perform on the file.
>Click OK.


~Thanks
Chiranjeevi

[chiranjeevi]

Hello,

Can you kindly elaborate on your requirement?

Thanks~
Chiranjeevi

[girit]

Hello Chiranjeevi,

Thank you again for your useful responses.

In Visual Studio when I create a deployment package only two files are created: Setup.exe and program.msi. IS also creates these two files, but the msi file it creates does not contain all the files it needs since it is far too small. All the necessary files are in Program and System32 folders as shown in the example below. The Program.msi file should be about 45MB if it contained all the installation files, but it is only 1.1MB. So the question is how can I create an installation that I just need to send end users only these two files not the folders, say, Program and System32 as below?

Sincerely,


03/23/2010 05:44 PM 22,492 0x0409.ini
03/22/2013 05:55 AM Program
03/22/2013 05:55 AM 1,212,928 setup.exe
03/22/2013 05:55 AM 5,054 Setup.ini
03/22/2013 05:55 AM System32
03/22/2013 05:55 AM 1,157,968 Program.msi

chiranjeevi wrote:
Hello,

Can you kindly elaborate on your requirement?

Thanks~
Chiranjeevi

[chiranjeevi]

Hello,

Thank you for the details provided.

Please follow the below steps to achieve the required behavior:

1>Click on releases view>Click on any of the release type (CD_Rom,DVD-5,SingleImage etc..)>click on "build" tab.
2>Set compression option to "Compressed".
3>Click on "setup.exe">Set setup Lancher option to "No"
4>Build the project

This type of build will wrap everything into a single msi setup file.

Thanks
Chiranjeevi

[girit]

Hello Chiranjeevi,

Thank you again.

I did all you've said. But I cannot set "Setup Launcher" to No although both Installation requirements set to No. I set the Setup Launcher to No, I get "ISDEV : error -7067: Your project contains Setup Prerequisites. These will only work if you choose to have your release contain setup.exe. Please change your release settings to build setup.exe or remove the Setup Prerequisite from your project". If I set this to Yes, then I get a smaller msi file and a large Data1.cab file. How can I resolve this iissue so that I just have an msi flle. I do not mind if there is a setup.exe file as well.

The other issue is the warnings I am getting

"Warning -6014: The shortcut "_05E3...." for component "C_1CC02...." is invalid because it does not reference an icon resource. Specify an icon file and icon index for this shortcut to resolve this issue. If no icon is specified ..."

There are such 10 warnings. I have no idea what "_05E3..." shortcut is? Error list does not give a line no, or location to see where the error is coming from.

Thank you again,

chiranjeevi wrote:
Hello,

Thank you for the details provided.

Please follow the below steps to achieve the required behavior:

1>Click on releases view>Click on any of the release type (CD_Rom,DVD-5,SingleImage etc..)>click on "build" tab.
2>Set compression option to "Compressed".
3>Click on "setup.exe">Set setup Lancher option to "No"
4>Build the project

This type of build will wrap everything into a single msi setup file.

Thanks
Chiranjeevi

[chiranjeevi]

Hello,

This seems to be a expected behavior, because if your project includes prerequisites, it's not possible to wrap everything into a single msi file. MSI engine cann't handle installshield prerequisites rather a bootstrapper is required to handle the prerequisites i.e. setup.exe.

Thanks
Chiranjeevi

[girit]

Hello Chiranjeevi,

Well, I understand that. I can use a setup file as well. But why does the installer creates a large Data1.cab file in addition to MSI file. Everything can be compressed into MSI file only. MSI file is a lot smaller that Data1.cab file. The VS 2010 creates just a setup.exe and a large MSI file for the same installation. So I might be doing something wrong still.

Thank you for your help.

chiranjeevi wrote:
Hello,

This seems to be a expected behavior, because if your project includes prerequisites, it's not possible to wrap everything into a single msi file. MSI engine cann't handle installshield prerequisites rather a bootstrapper is required to handle the prerequisites i.e. setup.exe.

Thanks
Chiranjeevi

[chiranjeevi]

Hello,

A network image will consist of a single .msi or Setup.exe file .For all other media types, the program files will be compressed into .cab files that are separate from .msi or setup.exe file.

Hence any other media (instead of Network) compressed with automatic spanning with setup launcher will give you separate CAB file(s) (i.e. not embedded in MSI).

Thanks
Chiranjeevi